Elm Creek Quilts [13] The Quilter's Kitchen (4 page)

¾ cup cider vinegar

½ cup light brown sugar, loosely packed

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

8 hamburger or other soft rolls

Barbecue sauce (optional)

To make the rub:
Place the salt, sugars, cumin, chili powder, paprika, black pepper, and cayenne in a bowl and mix well. Dredge the pork butt in the rub and massage into the meat. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 2 days. Let the meat come to room temperature before cooking, about 1 hour.

To make the sauce:
Place the tomatoes, water, cider vinegar, brown sugar, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf, cumin, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes in a slow cooker and cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions (or in a medium-size saucepan over medium-low heat) for 1½ hours. This can be made up to 2 days ahead of time.

To cook the pork:
Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and when it is hot, add the oil. Add the pork, one piece at a time, allowing the pan to reheat between additions, and brown on all sides. Transfer to a plate.

Combine the sauce and pork in a slow cooker and cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions (or in a medium-size saucepan over medium-low heat) until the meat is fork tender, about 4 hours. Remove the meat from the pan and degrease the sauce. When the meat has cooled somewhat, shred it with your hands and return to the degreased liquid. Reheat over low heat. Place big scoops on the buns and serve immediately, with extra barbecue sauce, if desired.

Vegetarian Chili

Serves 8

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

2 Spanish onions, coarsely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 red bell peppers, coarsely chopped

1 small eggplant, peeled (if desired), and cubed

2 small zucchini, cubed

1 tablespoon dried Greek oregano

1 to 2 tablespoons red pepper powder

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons ground cumin, or more to taste

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

One 15–15.5-ounce can or 2 cups cooked white beans, drained and rinsed

One 15–15.5-ounce can or 2 cups cooked black beans, drained and rinsed

Four (15–15.5-ounce) cans dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

One 15–15.5-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup dried brown lentils, picked over and rinsed

Two 28-ounce cans diced or whole tomatoes, coarsely chopped, including juice

Freshly chopped cilantro or basil leaves, for garnish

Lime quarters, for garnish

Place a large stockpot over medium-low heat and when it is hot, add the oil. Add the onions, garlic, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and spices and cook until the vegetables have softened, about 10 minutes.

Add the beans, lentils, and tomatoes and cook, covered, for 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. If the chili begins to boil, lower the heat. Cover and refrigerate in a storage container overnight.

Reheat and garnish with the basil or cilantro and serve with lime quarters.

Vegetable Curry

Serves 4 to 6

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 Spanish or red onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup curry powder

2 large zucchini, diced

1 yellow squash, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled, and diced

2 cups diced tomatoes, canned or fresh

½ cup mango chutney

Fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish

Yogurt, for garnish

Place a medium-size stockpot over medium-low heat and when it is hot, add the oil. Add the onion and garlic and cook 10 minutes. Add the curry powder, zucchini, and squash, cover, and cook 10 minutes. Add the red pepper and apples and cook, covered, for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chutney and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes, if the tomatoes are canned, and 20 minutes, if fresh.

Cover and refrigerate overnight or serve immediately, garnished with cilantro leaves and yogurt.

Spring Bread

Serves 8

This recipe is from Jennifer’s husband’s grandmother, Giuditta Chiaverini, and has been a family favorite for many years.

1 large cake yeast, broken up, or 1 package active dry yeast (0.25 ounces = 2¼ teaspoons)

2 cups warm water

1½ cups sugar

6 large eggs or 12 egg whites (for low-cholesterol diets)

1 cup canola or olive oil

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) anise extract

7 to 7½ cups unbleached flour

Butter or olive oil for rubbing on finished loaves

Place the yeast and water in a large bowl and mix well. Add the sugar and stir well. Combine the eggs, oil, and anise extract and stir again. Add the flour, gradually, and stir until it is no longer sticky and can be handled easily.

Place the dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 15 to 20 minutes.

Spray a large bowl with nonstick cooking spray. Place the dough in the bowl and cover with kitchen towels. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1½ hours. Knead again for a few minutes and then divide the dough into softball-size shapes.

At this point, you can use your imagination. You can place in free-form shapes on a baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, in loaf pans, or five balls in a tube pan nestled close together (my favorite way to bake this bread). If you use the tube pan, the balls should be smaller than a softball (just big enough to nestle together without crowding). You will have dough left over, which can be shaped as you wish. After placing the dough on a baking sheet, cover, and set aside to rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1½ hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Transfer the dough to the oven and bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes, depending upon the size of the loaf. You can use the “thump” method to test doneness. When the bread looks golden brown, “thump” it with your knuckle, and if it sounds hollow, it is ready to be removed from the oven. Cool the bread enough to remove from the pan. While still warm, to make the crust shiny, rub lightly with butter or olive oil.

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

Yield: 4 cups

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons cold water

½ cup sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ to ½ teaspoon chili powder

4 cups raw pecans or walnuts

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the egg white, water, sugar, salt, and spices in a large bowl and mix well. Add the nuts to the mixture and toss until well coated. Pour onto the prepared sheet and arrange in a single layer.

Transfer to the oven and bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until the pecans appear dry, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Immediately loosen the nuts with a spatula and set aside to cool.

Friendship Squares

Yield: 24 squares

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 cup chocolate chips

½ cup shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9 x 13-inch pan.

Place the butter and chocolate in a small metal bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside until slightly thickened and cool to the touch, 20 to 30 minutes.

Place the sugar and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle and mix until thick and creamy. Add the vanilla and mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour, melted chocolate, and salt and mix until just combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Sprinkle the top with the walnuts, chocolate chips, and coconut. Transfer to the oven and bake until a tester comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Set aside to cool on a wire rack.

Quilter’s Coffee

Serves 8

4 cups freshly brewed coffee

3 cups warm milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

Place all the ingredients in a medium-size pot, whisking all the while, and heat until hot. Serve immediately.

“National Quilting Day always feels like the first day of spring to me,” Sylvia remarked. “Even if a crust of snow still lingers on the ground, on the third Saturday of March I always feel as if spring is dawning and summer is just around the corner.”

Anna was about to reply when, upon opening a low cupboard near the side window, she caught the unmistakable whiff of mildew. “Sylvia, you might have some water damage here.” She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before reaching deeper into the cupboard. “I think the window seal leaked.”

“It’s little wonder, considering that the windows haven’t been updated since the Roaring Twenties.” Sylvia set a cookie sheet aside with a clatter and came over to inspect the damage for herself. “Perhaps we should have the contractor add replacement windows to the project. Summer has been after me for years to make the manor more energy efficient.”

“We might as well do it all at once,” Anna agreed, ruefully adding another few days to her mental calendar. If mold or mildew had settled in the walls—

When her gloved hand touched folded cloth, she grasped hold and pulled a bundle of faded, red-and-white gingham fabric into the open. Anna wrinkled her nose and turned her head away as the unpleasant odor intensified. “I think I found our mildew problem.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Sylvia rested her hand upon the counter and wisely came no closer. “How many times did I tell my sister never to put that tablecloth away wet? She never would take my advice.”

“This was a tablecloth?” Anna gingerly unfolded one blackened, deteriorating edge, trying to imagine that it had once been suitable to serve food upon. To her surprise she found that the center of the tablecloth had been spared from the mildew, and the cheerful red-and-white checks were not as faded.

“I haven’t seen that old tablecloth in more than fifty years,” said Sylvia. “It’s remarkable that even a thread of it is left. It saw hard use through the years, ever since my grandmother Elizabeth brought it home from the old dry goods store on Church Street in Waterford. It served as our tablecloth when we ate supper out on the veranda on sunny summer days and as our picnic blanket when we ate lunch beneath the elms on the banks of Elm Creek. When my younger brother was just a baby, my mother used to take us out nearly every day in fair weather. He would play on this tablecloth with my mother while my sister and I ran and picked flowers and threw pebbles into the creek.” Sylvia shook her head in wonder, gazing at the worn red-and-white gingham fondly. “Such memories I have of meals shared over this tablecloth—and stories, too. Old stories about the manor, of course, the tales about the first Bergstroms to come to America that my siblings and I knew well and loved—but mostly stories about my parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods. There’s something about a picnic that brings out lighthearted tales, don’t you agree?”

Anna hesitated, not wishing to disagree with Sylvia and spoil her fond reminiscence. For Anna, nothing about family meals, picnics or otherwise, evoked thoughts of lighthearted stories and little girls picking flowers. Meals with the Del Maso family involved lots of food and wine, boisterous laughter, and intense conversations that often flared into heated arguments, which turned into rounds of teasing when the anger was spent. Extra places were always set in anticipation of the neighbors, friends, and extended family who might show up unexpectedly to debate politics with her father or gossip about absent acquaintances with her mother. And Anna had loved it, even when she had to shout to make her opinions heard over her brothers’ deeper voices, even when the people she loved best in the world drove her crazy. Those happy hours spent around her family’s kitchen table were surely what had inspired her to become a chef. She only wished she could reproduce the spirit of those occasions as deftly as she had captured the flavors of her mother’s and grandmothers’ traditional recipes. From the look in Sylvia’s eyes, she knew Sylvia felt the same way about her own family’s traditions, even though the spirit of those two very different families were surely equally different.

“Lighthearted doesn’t describe my family or their stories very well,” Anna said. “Intense, yes. Passionate, definitely. Happy, of course. But there was never anything easygoing and relaxed about us, and I think we liked it that way.”

Anna imagined her parents and siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles gathered for a picnic on the veranda, just as the quilt campers had done throughout the last weeks of summer, Anna’s first as Elm Creek Manor’s chef. The campers had enjoyed fried chicken and sandwich wraps, tasty salads, fruit, and cupcakes for dessert. They had chatted pleasantly, laughed, and teased one another. As for the Del Maso family, no meal was complete without a huge bowl of pasta in the center of the table, and the decibel level would have soared high above whatever the quilters could have produced.

But she smiled, imagining both groups of picnickers meeting on the veranda. The quilters would surely wonder why the Del Masos were shouting and gesturing, giving every appearance of discord. Unless the quilters came from large Italian families themselves, they would probably be completely unaware that the Del Masos were thoroughly enjoying themselves, that every teasing retort was an expression of love.

“I don’t suppose any amount of bleach and hot water will make this tablecloth usable again,” Sylvia said with a small, regretful sigh. “Such a pity. Our campers love picnics on the veranda, and this tablecloth would have added such a lovely note of nostalgia. It would have made those occasions even more special for me.”

Anna knew exactly what she meant. A table adorned with familiar linens and china evoked family traditions just as familiar flavors did. If the gingham tablecloth could somehow be restored…“The fabric in the center looks salvageable,” she said, indicating a section free of water stains and mildew, where the red-and-white checks remained cheerful and bright. “If we washed it well, trimmed away the ruined parts, and hemmed the edges, it could work.”

“Perhaps as a table runner, but not as a tablecloth.” Sylvia shook her head, but then she paused, thoughtful. “Perhaps a table runner would suffice. Let’s not discard it yet. Set it aside, and when we’ve finished our remodeling and we’re ready for another project, we’ll see what we can do with it. I can’t bear to throw it out, not if we can preserve at least some portion of it.”

Anna nodded, picked up the tablecloth gingerly, and placed it in the hallway to air out where the odor of mildew wouldn’t bother them. She knew Sylvia cared more about preserving the memories of summer picnics than saving the fabric itself, but the red-and-white gingham evoked those memories the way nothing else could.

Even if only a table runner remained, something of that tablecloth had to be preserved. Anna didn’t know how, but she knew that when she told the other Elm Creek Quilters how much it mattered to Sylvia, they would come up with a solution. The circle of quilters would not fail their friend.

Fried Chicken

Serves 6 to 8

8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat

2 cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon Tabasco (optional)

For the coating:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon dried thyme

2 large eggs

¼ cup water

Canola oil

Lemon wedges, for garnish

Place the chicken, buttermilk, and if desired, the Tabasco in a bowl, mix well, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Drain the chicken and dry it as well as possible.

Place the flour, salt, pepper, cayenne, and thyme on a plate and mix well. Place the eggs and water on a plate and mix well.

Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, being sure to coat the chicken completely and shaking off any excess. Dip the chicken in the eggs and then again in the flour mixture. Shake off any excess, cover, and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours.

Place enough oil in a large deep skillet so that it reaches about ½ inch high. Heat the oil to 350 to 375 degrees F over medium-high heat. This will take about 7 minutes but you must use a thermometer. When the oil is hot, add the chicken pieces one at a time, making sure the oil reheats before adding each piece. Cook each piece until deep golden brown, 5 to 8 minutes.

Using tongs, remove the chicken to a paper towel. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

Campers’ Wrap

Serves 8

8 white or whole-wheat wraps, pitas, or soft-flour tortillas

¾ pound Virginia baked ham, thinly sliced

½ pound Brie cheese, sliced

½ cup honey mustard

2 firm pears, cored and thinly sliced

8 romaine leaves

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

Divide and layer the ingredients evenly among the 8 wraps and tightly roll. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate up to 4 hours.

Three-Bean Salad

Serves 4

For the salad:

1 cup cooked or canned dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup cooked or canned black turtle beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup cooked or canned white or garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups green beans, trimmed and snapped in half

½ bunch scallions, root end and 1-inch green part trimmed and discarded, remainder chopped

¼ cup fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

For the dressing:

2 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

¼ cup olive oil

½ cup fesh basil

Kosher salt and black pepper

To make the salad:
Place the beans, scallions, and parsley in a medium-size mixing bowl and toss to combine. Set aside.

To make the dressing:
Place the garlic in a food processor or blender and pulse until the garlic is chopped. Add the vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and basil and mix until well combined. Add to the bowl of beans, toss well, adding salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to overnight before serving.

Vermicelli Salad

Serves 4 to 6

3 garlic cloves

1 cup fresh basil leaves

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons warm water

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound vermicelli, cooked according to package directions, drained, and slightly cooled

¼ cup lightly toasted pine nuts or chopped walnuts

2 tomatoes, diced

¼ cup chopped black kalamata olives

½ to ¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Place the garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse to chop. Add ½ cup of the basil leaves and process until chopped. While the machine is running, add the lemon juice and water and process. Add the olive oil and process until very smooth. Pour over the vermicelli and toss well. Add the remaining ingredients. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate up to 4 hours. Garnish with the remaining ½ cup basil.

Southwestern Couscous, Corn, and Black Bean Salad

Yield: 5 to 6 cups

For the salad:

½ cup boiling water

¾ cup couscous

2 cups raw corn kernels

One 15–15.5-ounce can black turtle beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup chopped seeded plum tomatoes

¼ cup chopped red onion

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more, to taste

For the dressing:

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 large garlic cloves, crushed or minced

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

½ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt

To make the salad:
Place the water and couscous in a small bowl and cover. Let sit 5 minutes.

Place the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl, add the couscous, and mix to combine.

To make the dressing:
Put all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk well. Add the dressing to the couscous-corn mixture, cover, and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to overnight. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Tomato-Cucumber Salad

Yield: about 7 cups

4 cups chopped tomatoes

1 English cucumber, cut in large dice

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper